I have been a huge fan of Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones ever since I bought my first W800i. I migrated onto the W810i which was even better. And how heart broken was I when my W810i got stolen! I had already decided that I was going to buy a Walkman Series phone, and was not too keen on spending too much money. In fact W200i was a serious, serious contender.
While I did give a passing look at other brands, I was never too keen on them in the first place. In the Sony Ericsson series the options were W200i which would have been light on the wallet. W300i has got decent reviews and was well priced at 5500 bucks, but Sony doesnt make them any more. W710i too has been stopped. W380i was another phone that I was looking at pretty seriously. It was decently priced at 7500 odd bucks and had most features.
Though it lacked video recording, it’s something I don’t really care about. It was as good a music phone as I wanted. Touch controls on the top (Apparently you have to press them real hard to use them), Display on the top as well. A2DP. It also has something called gesture control by which you can mute an incoming call by waving your hand over it. It’s cool, but really pretty useless, unless you want to show your colleagues in a meeting a technological trick. a
And your regular camera and bluetooth and the jazz. And I have somewhat of a thing for clamshell phones and I was very close to buying it. Other phones worth mentioning are W660i which is a 3G phone, though I have no clue where I would use any 3G features, but would be handy in the future I am sure. Plus it’s quite stylish and feels very, very good in the hand. And it’s also on the expensive side, as far as my budget went. W580i was another phone I gave a look at simply because I was evaluating all the Walkman series phones. Slide Phones have never been my thing. I really believe the wear and tear on a slide phone over a period of time would be too pronounced for them to have a long life.
W350i was there all along, while I was evaluating all these phones, But I had got a feedback that the top flap is too flimsy, which had put me off. But I had not seen the mobile yet, since every shop that I happened to go to, did not have a dummy W350i. Feature wise, I had researched the phone and was surprised to know the amount of things they had packed into a cell phone priced at 6800 Rupees. It has your bluetooth, Browsing, blogging which are some features that though I wanted in my phone, I wasn’t prepared to shell out 10 grands for them. I was saved!
Looks wise the phone is ubercool. I love the black orange combo. The minimalistic buttons on the flap make the phone even cooler. Some guy asked me whether this was a phone or an MP3 player. The Walkman buttons on the sides and the top of the flaps let you browse, select and play any songs and playlists, and increase or decrease the volume. A thing that really confuses me is that there is no wiring going from the flap to the phone. So how does it work? Do the buttons on the keypad double up as walkman buttons when the flap is closed? That is nifty. But to add songs to a play list you have to access the buttons inside the flap. There is a key lock slider on the top, which locks the walkman buttons on top of the flap. Useful while you are in office. I had initially thought that the socket to attach the earphones being on the side would be a hinderance, but it’s actually better than having it on the bottom. The cell fits better in my pocket like this.
And as far as flimsiness of the flap goes, it’s something I was very ok with. It’s not adamantium-sturdy, that’s for sure. But it is definitely not that flimsy that you risk breaking it everytime you answer a call. I am not sure how much of a tumble would the cell be able to take, but that’s probably because the phone is so sleek. I always get the impression that all sleek phones are delicate and that bias might not be true. Nonetheless I would be glad if someone who has done any crash tests on the cell, would share the results with me. Atleast I would breathe easier.
Also, to answer the phone you do have to open the flap, unless you are using the hands free earphones. But to reject a call you don’t have to open the flap. Press the volume button once, the call gets muted. Press it twice the call is disconnected. Also, if you have dialled a phone while on hands free, you can close the flap while talking and the call won’t be disconnected. Also, the flap opens up with the hand you are holding the cell with. Both hands aren’t required.
Camera is only a utility thing, A 1.3MP camera is as basic as one can expect these days. No flash. No Video Shooting. But having had two phones with those features, I realized that I don’t use them at all! Camera was absolutely not my deciding criteria.
Walkman is great. Music at your fingertips as the phone says. Once the flap closes the currently played song is what you have on the screen. Its supposed to have Walkman version 2, but I did not really get the difference. Sorting playlists seems to be easier compared to on the W810i though.
A big minus is that you do not get the voice cancellation ear phones that I got with my W800i and W810i. They really fit snugly in your ears and are extremely comfortable. I hate using the plastic-blob earphones that you get with everyother phone and MP3 players like iPod. And you get the same ones with this phone. I would have grumbled about it a bit more, but I have the voice cancellation ear phones from both my previous Walkman phones.
Battery life is fantastic as has been my experience with the previous two SE phones as well. In this phone the battery doesn’t have a slide cover. It needs to be plucked open. I haven’t used the PC Suite that comes along with the phone so don’t know about it much. But install that and you can charge your phone through the USB port in your laptop or PC. Well that’s about it. My three weeks experience with it has been great. And I am guarding this phone with my life.